Posts Tagged The Walking Dead

It’s been a packed week here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office. We spent a lot of time watching, and rewatching, and re-rewatching the new trailer for Avengers: Age Of Ultron, and, like all good comic book enthusiasts, we spend a bunch of time dissecting what we saw, speculating on what we didn’t see, and ghostwriting what we’d like to see.

In addition, since we finally had our cable and Internet back online long enough for the Home Office TiVo to get the episodes of The Walking Dead that we missed, we binge-watched it and discussed what we liked, what we didn’t like, subtlety versus heavy-handedness, plot versus theme, and why it is more likely that AMC would kill Robert Kirkman this season than it is they would Daryl Dixon.

We also talk about:

All-New Hawkeye#1, written by Jeff Lemire with art by Ramon Perez, and:

Guardians Team Up #1, written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Art Adams!

And now the disclaimers:

We record this show live to tape. While this might mean a looser comics podcast than you are used to, it also means that anything can happen. Like an argument over whether The Walking Dead is in dire need of a musical episode.

This show contains spoilers. While we try to shout out warnings ahead of time, be aware that we might ruin everything from the ending to last week’s The Walking Dead to the fact that Avengers: Age of Ultron is going to be rated PG-13.

This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. You want your Mom to hear what we think about “sweet biscuits”? Get some headphones.

There has been another creative team change on Batgirl, by all reports due to editorial edict. So Amanda and I talk not only about the proposed new direction for the character, but we about the increasing influence over story and tone that editorial seems to have been gaining over creative teams as opposed to the early 2000s, when comics were doomed and writers and artists could seemingly do any damn thing they wanted if the sales numbers this month were higher than the ones from last month.

We are also just over a week away from San Diego Comic-Con 2014, so we talk about some of the scheduled panels, and how the wealth of content can make it infuriating, if not impossible, see everything you want at the show.

Finally, we discuss and review The Walking Dead #129, and Grayson #1!

And now the usual legalese:

We record this show live to tape. While that might mean some parts are a little rough around the edges compared to your regular comics podcast, it also means that anything can happen.

This show contains spoilers. We try to give a shout-out ahead of time, but we drink while recording. So tread lightly.

This podcast contains adult, explicit language, and is not safe for work. If you don’t want your boss hearing us talk about how superhero costumes contain compartments for each boob, wear headphones.

This 4th of July weekend, we got sucked into the AMC marathon of The Walking Dead, and were surprised how binge-watching the whole thing from the beginning changed our opinion of the show. So we talked about that extensively, along with:

The NBC Constantine pilot leaked to the Internet this week. Amanda and I saw it, and have some fairly strong opinions as to what worked (Matt Ryan as John Constantine) and what didn’t (writing, pacing, too much exposition, not enough mystery, no local flavor, and some other stuff),

Original Sin #5, written by Jason Aaron with art by Mike Deodato, and:

Rocket Raccoon #1, written and drawn by Skottie Young!

And now, the legalese:

We record the show live to tape. That means a few stuttered words more than you’re used to in a comics / genre culture podcast, but it also means that anything can happen.

The show contains spoilers. Some weeks it’s a few, some it’s a lot. This is one of the latter. Be forewarned.

Amanda and I use explicit, adult language, so this podcast is not safe for work. Unless your boss likes phrases like, “Preemptive dribble of patriotism,” wear headphones.

In this week’s podcast, Amanda and I are joined by longtime Crisis On Infinite Midlives contributors Trebuchet and Pixiestyx! Trebuchet read comics as a kid and came back to them as an adult, and Pixiestyx didn’t read any comics until adulthood. Which make them the perfect guests with whom to discuss:

Star Wars: Episode VII! And more specifically, why we aren’t feeling all that excited about it,

Considering the comics industry is dying (almost literally) to bring in new and lapsed readers, what factors, books, and events brought Trebuchet and Pixiestyx to comics in the 21st Century,

Uber #14, written by Keiron Gillen with art by Gabriel Andrade,

The Walking Dead #128. written by Robert Kirkman with art by Charlie Adlard, and

The United States of Murder Inc. #2, written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Michael Avon Oeming!

But first, a few disclaimers:

This show is recorded live to tape, and may contain more pauses, “um’s”, and references to tube steaks, lips and Kobe assholes than your average comic book podcast,

There are spoilers here. We try to warn ahead of time, but proceed at your own risk, and

This show features adult, profane language, and is not safe for work. We all found headphones with which to record the show, so you can damn well hunt some up to listen to it.

It is Sunday, which means it’s time for another episode of the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Show, or as we like to call it: that thing we do as an excuse to not write for one day so we can devote more time to drinking whiskey, watching Game of Thrones, and babying the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office Mascot, Parker The Kitten.

On today’s show, we tackle:

Godzilla! We went into it thinking it would be a movie filled with Walter White battling a giant lizard, walked out of it thinking it was a pretty enjoyable reboot of the property… and then we talked about it. And sometimes, that’s the worst thing you can do to a movie…

Wild-assed and variant covers – Marvel announced this week that the covers of each issue of The Death of Wolverine would be something called “Weapon Etched Holo Foil,” and DC is planning to release their Futures End (Mistakenly called Five Years Later in the show) September one-shots with another series of 3D covers. As a couple of people who lived through variant covers and how they helped kill comics in the mid-90s, we don’t have a lot to add about it, but man do we like to complain about them.

Batgirl #31, written by Gail Simone with art by Fernando Pasarin

The United States of Murder Inc., written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Michael Avon Oeming

The Walking Dead #127, written by Robert Kirkman with art by Charlie Adlard, and:

Cat nutrition, or: taking care of a stray animal for only $47 a day

And one show note for the week:

The Island of The Mushroom People is an actual movie, actually called Attack of The Mushroom People in America and Matango in its native Japan. I wish I was making that up.

And, our usual semi-legalese:

This show was recorded live to tape, meaning that you might hear more than the normal number of “ums”, pregnant pauses, and references to Bukkake

This show contains adult, profane language, and is not safe for work. That line just above about references to Bukkake? I didn’t pull that out of my ass. Be smart: listen with headphones.

I missed this last Thursday, but the Conan show parodied The Walking Dead in a cold open to honor the cast of the show. They were guests for the night. There’s a lot to like about the clip. Conan’s zombie make-up is solid. Andy Richter is remarkably well put together, considering, well, zombie apocalypse. And, the Basic Cable Band seems particularly enthusiastic covering the theme to The Walking Dead. After all those year’s of playing Basic Cable Name That Tune, it must have been very exciting for them to play a song that had a licensed copyright. All in all, well done, Conan.

Now, I’m going to have to see if I have this recorded somewhere on the Tivo.

One of the most interesting, and occasionally infuriating, things about the AMC television version of The Walking Dead is how it had followed certain plot arcs from the original comic book, while in others it wildly deviates from those books. For example, Rick’s crew met The Governor in the original comics, but he sure as hell didn’t have a second act after Michonne got through with him (nor a second kidney, and the less said about his testicles, the better), and unlike in the comics, Andrea is still wandering about picking off bad guys almost at will.

Those deviations started early in the first season of the show – in the comic, if Rick ever visited the Center For Disease Control, it was to get a nasty rash he crossed back over the Mexican border with looked at – and at the time, many of us just figured that someone made a conscious decision to make changes over a period of time. Maybe because of something original showrunner Frank Darabont decided, or because of the whim of some focus group-armed network suit.

Well, it turns out, based on a panel that The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman have at this past weekend’s Arizona Comic Con, the decision did come from a guy in a suit. That suit being mostly denim and leather. And that guy being Daryl Dixon.

Those of us who are fans of AMC’s adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, and who attended the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con, were shocked when, just a few days after the convention, showrunner Frank Darabont was fired from the show, after having been a big part of hyping the show at the con. Not only had Darabont’s involvement in the show been a big selling point for fans of the comic (many of who, like me, didn’t think any TV version of the book could capture the bleak near-hopelessness that the story sometimes carried), but giving Darabont the ick right after trotting him out to hype the show in Hall H just seemed crass. And sure, AMC and the production and Darabont himself all said at the time that the split was mutual, but the timing felt less like someone pursuing his future endeavors and more like some party threw some cash on Darabont’s nightstand and told him to clean himself up and watch so the door didn’t hit him on the ass on the way out.

But again, everyone, including Darabont, said at the time that the split was mutual… but that was 28 months ago. Now, The Walking Dead is on its fourth season and third showrunner, Darabont is getting ready to debut Mob City, a new crime show on TNT debuting in December, so… no hard feelings, right?

I have not been particularly quiet about my opinion that The Walking Dead has been spinning its wheels for a while now – you get Negan making threats, Rick and company come up with some kind of plan to turn things around, Negan sees said plan coming and turns it around with effortless ease and an erudite and witty comeback such as, “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re fucking fucked, you stupid fucker,” – and yes, that was an actual quote from Negan from one of the last few issues – and you repeat and repeat and repeat until you start considering dropping the title and waiting for the trade for the first time since the seventh issue.

This seemingly endless cycle has been going on for at least 17 months, or since Negan killed Glenn… but with issue 116, we finally we have an issue of The Walking Dead where not only does something go wrong for that baseball bat-fellating son of a bitch, but where there’s an actual live zombie attack. It’s a Goddamned Christmas Miracle!

Well… Negan still says irritating cocky shit and gets a hostage out of the deal. So maybe it’s more of a Thanksgiving Miracle. You know, the kind where you still have to put up with drunken racist Uncle Pete, but you avoid jail time for choking him out because for once, you get to witness him slipping on some gravy and falls on his ass.

What? You say you’re already two episodes into this season of The Walking Dead and you can’t get enough of that sweet, sweet ultraviolence? Miss the satisfying pop as a shovel separates a walker’s head from his spinal cord? Wish Shane, Merle or the Govenor was still around because they helped to reinforce the idea that evil doesn’t come in an airborne virus or a shuffling, hungry horde, but rather through the way we treat our fellow man?

Still happy Andrea’s dead?

Then watch this mash up where The Walking Dead meets The Monster Mash and all will be well. At least until you start to get the zombie apocalypse DTs next Sunday – for that I’ll recommend whiskey. It always stops my hands from shaking, especially if I’m trying to whack my neighbor’s kid a zombie in the head with a shovel. Precision is everything.